1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a user interface technique used when recording multimedia data such as a recorded program on a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an HD-DVD video recorder comprising an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) drive is known. This HD-DVD video recorder temporarily records, on the HDD, a broadcast program or the like received through the tuner, and copies and writes the broadcast program recorded on the HDD onto a DVD. Recently, with advances in techniques such as DRM (Digital Rights Management) and Copy Once accompanying an increase in awareness of copyright protection for broadcast programs, restrictions have been imposed on the contents of programs to be written on DVDs, the number of times of writing, and the like in consideration of copyright protection. A restriction on the number of times of writing called Copy Once, in particular, has been widely employed as a technique of allowing, upon temporarily recording a broadcast program on a recording medium such as an HDD, to write the copy data onto another recording medium only once.
Recent printers have a label printing function of printing information such as images and characters on the label printing surfaces of DVDs and CD-Rs. Using this function makes it possible to print an arbitrary character string or image on a DVD (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-161867).
FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing each of processes concerning broadcast programs, that is, recording, reproduction, writing, and label printing, performed by a personal computer with a conventional program recording function.
Referring to FIG. 10, this system executes one of the following processes: “1: record”, “2: reproduce”, “3: write”, and “4: print label”, in accordance with an operation instruction issued by a user using an operation unit such as a remote controller (S7001).
“1: record” is the operation of storing a broadcast program or the like in an HDD. When the user selects “1: record”, the system activates the recording module in step S7101 to record a program in step S7102. At the same time, the system saves the program in the HDD in correspondence with a program ID for identifying the recorded program at the time of reproduction, writing, and printing processes for the recorded program. When recording is complete, the process returns to step S7001.
“2: reproduce” is the operation of reproducing the program recorded on the HDD on a TV set or the like. When the user selects “2: reproduce”, the system activates the reproducing module in step S7021 to reproduce the recorded program. When reproduction is complete, the process returns to step S7001.
“3: write” is the operation of selecting an arbitrary program from one or more programs recorded on the HDD and writing the selected program on a recording medium such as a DVD. The system starts the function of “3: write” by activating application software for writing data on a DVD. When the user issues a write instruction by performing various operations, the system activates the writing module (S7301) to write the program on a recording medium (S7309). Upon completion of writing, the process returns to step S7001. At this time, when writing a program which is copyright-protected (based on, for example, the Copy Once function), the system erases the program saved in the HDD to prevent it from being copied without restriction.
“4: print label” is the operation of printing a label on a DVD. The system starts the function of “4: print label” by activating application software for label printing. When the user issues a print instruction by performing various operations, the system activates the printing module (S7401) to output a print command to the printer to print a label on a DVD. When the printer finishes label printing, the process returns to step S7001.
As described above, such a conventional system writes a recorded program on a DVD independently of label printing. That is, the system does not perform these operations as associated operations. In a practical operating environment, when printing a label on a DVD, the system sometimes cannot print the desired label because of a print failure due to an ink shortage, misregistration, the use of an inappropriate medium, disconnection of the cable, or the like.
Assume that the system has already written restriction information for copyright protection in a DVD which has suffered a print failure as described above. In this case, since the above restriction information restricts the degree of freedom of operation such as data copying or moving operation, it is expected that the user cannot write the same program again on a DVD on which a label is properly printed. That is, when a print failure occurs on a DVD or the like on which copy data has been written once, the user sometimes cannot copy the same data on the DVD even if he/she tries to generate a DVD on which a label is properly printed.